


I'm Jingle Belling and Everyone's Yelling

by sunsetmagnolia



Category: All Time Low (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Cheating, M/M, Skipping School, alex will misbehave if it turns jack on etc., all fluff tho, and lots of swearing, snowball throwing, song: santa stole my girlfriend (the maine)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27912610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetmagnolia/pseuds/sunsetmagnolia
Summary: Alex gets dumped for Santa. Jack gets revenge.
Relationships: Jack Barakat/Alex Gaskarth
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	I'm Jingle Belling and Everyone's Yelling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bellawritess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellawritess/gifts).



> love u bella
> 
> The fic itself is based on Santa Stole My Girlfriend by The Maine, but the title is from Merry Christmas, Kiss My Ass by All Time Low because that felt more appropriate.

The fresh snowfall is a nice backdrop to the day, Alex thinks to himself as he crunches across the parking lot into the mall where his girlfriend should be finishing up her shift at Abercrombie. It’s not too cold now that the sun is out, but the snow isn’t all sludge yet. He stomps his feet as he walks into the building to get the snow off his shoes, which are already a little soaked through but it’s fine. He passes by the hallway to the bathrooms on his way to the store and sees a guy halfway dressed as Santa, just without the hat and beard. The guy recognizes him first and gives him a wave, and Alex vaguely places him as a senior. How would a senior know him? Maybe he’s in band or something. Maybe he’s one of Rian’s drum cronies who gets annoyed at him when he tries to talk Rian into ditching marching band practice to practice for his real band.

Alex gets to Abercrombie and smiles at the girl – Sarah – at the checkout counter. She smiles back. “If you’re looking for Jessica, she left a few minutes ago.”

“Oh,” Alex says. He pulls out his phone and looks at the time.

Sarah nods. “Yeah, I got here early so she took off.”

“Okay. I’ll go, uh, find her. Thanks.” Alex turns and walks back out, wondering why she would leave early and where she would go because Alex always picks her up on Sundays. For a second he thinks maybe he has the day wrong and it’s not a Sunday, that maybe it’s a Monday and Alex is just so used to skipping school on any day of the week that days have lost all meaning, but no it is indeed a Sunday.

He walks back past the big red chair where Santa is supposed to be sitting, and a short line of kids has formed past a velvet rope. Instead, behind his chair and carefully out of view of the families, Santa is intently making out with a girl. _Fuck yeah Santa_ , he thinks to himself. The girl looks cute, from what he can see. Actually, she looks familiar. Alex stops in his tracks. She looks like his girlfriend. He walks toward them like he’s being pulled by his morbid curiosity until he knows for sure that it’s her. Funnily enough, from this distance he can see there’s a sprig of mistletoe hung up on top of Santa’s chair, which is kind of a gross place for mistletoe.

“Jessica?” Alex says when he’s only a few feet away from them and they still haven’t noticed him.

Santa pulls away from her and turns to Alex, looking a little shocked. Jessica doesn’t look as surprised. “Oh, hi Alex,” she says, with a smile that’s almost a cringe.

“Hi?” Alex repeats. “What- I mean, who…” He gestures at Santa. “Huh?”

“This is Nick,” Jessica says, as if that explains anything.

“Okay?” Alex says, but mostly asks.

Jessica tugs on her sleeves and then tucks her bangs behind her ear. “Um, Alex, I think we should see other people.”

“You already are,” Alex practically yells. The families can’t see who he’s talking to, so the parents just stare at him like he’s overreacting.

Jessica looks up at Santa, who’s avoiding eye contact with Alex. “Yeah,” she says finally.

A guy dressed as an elf walks around the other side of the big red chair and says it’s time for Santa to get back to work. Santa looks relieved to have an excuse to leave.

“You weren’t gonna break up with me before making out with Santa?” Alex says.

“I’ve never had to dump a boy before,” she says desperately.

Oh god. Alex has been _dumped_. Two weeks before Christmas break. What the _fuck_. He can’t think of anything else to say, so he throws his hands up in disbelief and turns to walk away. He sees the parents in line giving him looks of pity like they know what just happened – and let’s be real, they probably heard everything – and he feels childish indignation rise in his chest. It’s either stomp and throw a tantrum or “You’re a real bitch, Santa!” he turns and shouts. “I thought we were friends!”

“Young man, there are children here!” A mother shrieks from the front of the line. She has her hands over the ears of her son, who looks very confused.

“Sorry,” Santa says, sounding not-very-genuine in his fake-deep voice.

A short yet intimidating woman in a mall security shirt appears in front of Alex. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“But he—” Alex starts, pointing at Santa. The woman narrows her eyes at him. “Fuck you, Santa!” Alex yells over the security woman’s shoulder and then takes off running toward the door that leads outside before she can tase him or something.

The snow in the parking lot has turned to grey sludgy puddles, even though it’s still white and fluffy on the parts of the pavement where no one has walked or driven yet. Alex trudges back to his car and decides to treat himself to Taco Bell on the way home in an attempt to fix his lonely, broken heart. If he’s ever deserved it, it’s today.

He mopes around his house the rest of the evening and then continues to mope in school the next morning.

Jack pokes him in the back in math class where neither of them are paying attention, but instead of writing random things or doodling, Alex is just staring at his open workbook. “Dude, what is wrong with you?”

“Got dumped for Santa,” Alex replies.

“The fuck does that mean?”

“I caught Jessica and some senior named Nick who plays Santa at the mall making out yesterday.”

“Damn, Santa’s a player.”

“Yeah. Fuck him.”

“Is it Nick who’s in Zack’s shop class?”

“Oh _that’s_ where I know him from,” Alex mutters.

“Wanna get back at him?”

“How?”

Jack shrugs. “He lives down the street from me and I’m a genius so I’ll think of something.”

Jack does think of something, but it’s far from genius. “I’ve had worse ideas,” Jack says as he packs another snowball together and sits it in the bowl.

Alex can’t feel his fingers anymore, yet somehow Jack is right. “That’s true,” Alex says. “That doesn’t make this a genius idea.”

“I don’t see you coming up with anything better.”

And Jack is right again. Twice in a row now. Alex blames it on his sad brain on account of being dumped for Santa.

“We’ll pop these babies in the freezer for a while and then by the time school is out they’ll be frozen enough to throw at Santa’s car.” Jack holds the bowl out to Alex to put the last snowball in. The first part of Jack’s idea – which was admittedly great– was ditching at lunch. They’d put a frozen pizza in the oven as soon as they got to Jack’s house “to make room in the freezer for the snowballs” and now Alex is scared his hands might be permanently frozen but at least it’s better than being in class.

Alex warms his hands with the pizza and warms his feet by shoving them under Jack’s thighs when he sits down. He almost forgets they have a mission, losing track of time in laughing at bad daytime tv and Jack’s general company, until an alarm goes off on Jack’s phone.

“School’s out, let’s go!” Jack cheers, standing up.

They pull the bowl of now-frozen snowballs out of the freezer and climb into Alex’s car, where Jack is in the driver's seat because Jack managed to convince him that it’ll be easier for Alex to throw snowballs if he’s not the one driving. “You’re sure you know which house is his?” Alex asks.

“Yeah, his dad yelled at me one time when Zack was trying to teach me to skateboard and I crashed into his car.”

“Santa’s dad is a bitch too.”

Jack giggles a little. “Hey you know what’s funny? His name is Nick, and he’s playing Santa.” Alex rolls his eyes. Jack just turns around for a second to look at Alex. “Come on, that’s funny. Nick. Like St. Nick. Like Santa.” Alex continues to keep a straight face. “You know I’m funny,” Jack says, reaching out blindly to poke Alex as he drives.

“Fuck off,” Alex laughs as he shoves Jack’s hand away from his face.

Jack slows the car to a stop on the wrong side of the street and points to the house they can see through Alex’s window. “That one’s his. And that’s his car.”

Alex looks over their decorations. The snow fell again overnight, leaving the roads slushy once again, but the yards covered in a fresh layer of snow. The neighbors have a light-up reindeer. “They have an inflatable Santa on the roof.”

“Is it Nick?”

Alex snorts.

“Snowballs ready?”

“Yup.” The bowl is frozen in his lap and he’s starting to second guess this plan, but Jack grabs a snowball and rolls his own window down, flashing Alex a wicked grin and climbing up to sit in the open window before throwing a snowball that lands disappointingly close to the car’s left rear tire.

“Dammit!” Jack yells. “Hand me another!” Alex puts another snowball in his outstretched hand, and this one hits the car’s fender. Jack cheers and ducks his head down to look at Alex. “We’re here for you, are you gonna throw one or not?”

Alex moves the bowl onto the dash so he can lean out his window. He picks up a snowball and feels the weight of it in his hand, trying to guess how hard to throw it so he hits the car but doesn’t accidentally break a window. He reaches up and throws as hard as he can. The snowball hits the back windshield and then the car alarm starts going off. Jack starts laughing, which sends Alex laughing too. He and Jack both reach for more snowballs and keep throwing them

A hit to the garage door.

A hit to the mailbox.

Another hit to Nick’s car.

A hit to the other car in the driveway, and that car’s alarm starts going off too. Jack laughs and cheers even louder. This is beyond a bad idea and Alex wants to take off so they don’t get caught, but Jack’s joy is infectious, and Alex is starting to suspect he’s lucky he didn’t get talked into anything worse.

Alex throws a snowball too far to the right and it hits the front door right in the middle. “Oh god,” he says. “We gotta go!”

“No! We’re almost out!” Jack says, still beaming, and of course there are only three left. Jack grabs two of them. Half a second later, one of them hits Nick’s car again.

Alex hurls his final snowball at the side mirror on Nick’s car, and it’s admittedly satisfying to see the mirror dramatically change its angle when it gets hit dead on.

The front door swings open right as Jack throws his last snowball and Alex watches it in slow motion as it flies across the yard to crash into the door luckily right above the head of the woman who opened the door. Alex feels his eyes widen. “Fuck. Fuck!”

“What _are_ you doing?” the woman, probably Nick’s mom, yells at them.

“Shit!” Jack screams and climbs back inside the car, putting it in drive and taking off down the street as Alex stays hanging out the window in shock. He doesn’t think to ask where Jack is going, driving away from his house. When he pulls himself back into the car, Jack has driven around the block and is pulling into his driveway from the opposite direction.

“What if she follows us?” Alex asks.

“Run!” Jack leaps out of the car and Alex follows him into the house, where they run directly to Jack’s bedroom and Jack goes to look out his window.

“Is she out there?” Alex whispers, and then realizes that even if she is she can’t hear him.

“No. Coast is clear.” Jack turns around and looks at Alex, breathing heavy from their mad dash up the stairs, and then they both start laughing.

Alex collapses onto Jack’s bed and laughs until his eyes start to water. “That was such a bad idea,” he says between peals of laughter.

“Fuck you, I’m a genius,” Jack says, hitting Alex with a pillow, which only makes him laugh harder. Jack climbs onto his bed and sits up cross legged with his back against the headboard.

Alex manages to take a deep breath and realizes his cheeks hurt. “I’m never listening to you again,” he says, trying to keep from laughing again. They both know it’s a lie. As Alex catches his breath and watches Jack still smiling proudly, like they didn’t just run for their lives from an angry mom, it’s cemented in his mind that Jack could talk him into doing any stupid thing.

“Did it at least make you feel better about Jessica?” Jack asks.

Alex has to stop himself from asking who he’s talking about. But Jessica. Santa. The whole reason for this snowball tirade. Alex sighs a laugh. “Yeah. Fuck Santa though.”

“At least now you’ll have Sunday afternoons free again.”

“For what? More band practice?”

“Just to hang out.” Jack’s smile is a little softer now. Alex’s stomach does an unexpected little flip at that. “Maybe throwing more snowballs. That was fun.”

“Maybe something warmer,” Alex says. “And not illegal.” He doesn’t know if throwing snowballs is illegal.

“We can do something warmer,” Jack says, less suggestively than expected. “Still has to be illegal though.” And there it is. Jack raises his eyebrows and Alex laughs but feels his face getting warmer. Hopefully he can blame it on the cold. Jack laughs with him. Maybe Alex doesn’t need a girlfriend who can cheat on him with Santa. Maybe all he needs is Jack’s smile and genius ideas and one free Sunday afternoon.


End file.
